Looking Forward
by MariaMalfoyesq
Summary: My name is Mandy. For everything I’ve been through, my true journey through life with a full heart and clear mind began when I was forced to move to a small town that taught me the truest and best lessons I’d ever learn in life.
1. Prologue

Authors Note: Just so everyone knows this is my first story so be kind, and please any ideas or feedback is always welcome.

I'm only gonna do this once. so... I don't own any of the characters from Friday night lights although I would love to own Tim Riggins he's hot ;)

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**Looking Forward**

**Prologue.**

_I could here the roar in my ears and knew that this moment was defining of everything I had ever hoped for. I looked around _

_me and knew that I would be forever changed because I now knew what the big picture was. It wasn't about money, power _

_or self gain. It was about looking forward and trusting to hope that even though the world might let us down that we will be _

_strong enough to pick ourselves up. Looking around me, with the crowd screaming for joy in the packed stadium and rain _

_pouring down on us, soaked to the bone and not giving a damn, that for one moment everything was good and our hearts _

_were filled with hope not of football but of a better future, and that for that one moment we all felt it. I looked towards the _

_field and locked eyes with my brother and knew that no matter what he'd always have my back and I would always have his _

_and that no matter what the future brought us we'd face it together. Because even though I wasn't out there with him _

_playing the game he loved so much, I still felt apart of it. I think we all did. We were all playing. Just playing. Football._

_My name is Mandy. For everything I've been through, my true journey through life with a full heart and clear mind began _

_when I was forced to move to a small town that taught me the truest and best lessons I'd ever learn in life. _

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AN: Ok so not very long I know but hopefully the next chapter will be much longer. I just wanted to give you a feel for the story. 

Please review!


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1.

A man in his sixties, wearing a tailored designer suit, who at 64 still looked very distinguished and with more than a little of his old charm and good looks, stood facing off with a girl of 17 who standing at a height of five feet was doing an impressive job at intimidating the old retired lawyer who was known to have been a shark in the court room.

He shook his head, he knew that he shouldn't have taught her to win arguments so effectively, well he was suffering for it now. He and his wife, Annabelle, had taken his granddaughter, Mandy and her twin brother Charlie, in and raised them from infancy when shortly after their birth their parents had been killed in a car accident. It had been a big decision but an easy one.

Joseph truly loved his grandchildren and the young adults they had become. But now that he was dealing with a pissed off teenage girl he suddenly felt truly old.

Mandy looked at her grandfather who just seconds ago was standing tall and proud seemed to shrink in front of her and looked rather old to her eyes. Her defiant stance suddenly faltered, she knew that her grandfather didn't mean to upset her. But to move across the country to a small town for her senior year was just unacceptable to her.

Mandy looked up as her grandfather who had been like a father to her spoke.

"Darling, I know this is hard but can't you understand that your grandmother and I aren't as young as we used to be. Your grandmother is still ill and the doctor said that the Texas weather and lifestyle of the town of Dillon will be good for her. I know we're uprooting you from your life here, away from your friends and the life you've created here but you might like it there. Plus it really doesn't matter what school you go to, as long as your grades are good you will still be able to go to the school of your choice. After all the Crawford name still holds a lot of weight."

Mandy's stance faltered again and Joseph knew he had one this battle.

"Okay. I'll go." Mandy's answer was short and clipped but she knew that she wouldn't have won this battle of wills especially with her grandfather using her grandmother as part of his arsenal, because she loved them and knew she probably would do anything for them. She just wished she didn't have to move to some no name place and leave everything she knew and had come to love about California.

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Mandy left the room and went up to her brother, Charlie's room. She knocked and entered upon hearing her twin brother say "come in". Mandy looked around the room that was rather typical of a teenage boy.

Clothes were strewed everywhere and the walls were covered in posters of football players and teams as well as the scantily clad cheerleaders. Mandy smiled as she saw her brother hard at work on his school work. Charlie may have been your typical jock except for the fact he actually cared about school work and was pretty damn smart.

He was tall, six feet to be exact, towering over her petite form of only a measly five foot three. They looked similar but you would never peg them as twins. Siblings yes, but not twins. He was classic handsome, all tall, dark and handsome where Mandy exuded a silent but charged warmth and understanding.

Mandy wasn't your classic beauty, she looked more exotic than anything, she had naturally curly hair which was mostly straightened and big grayish eyes, she also happened to have a rather athletic build from her years of playing all sorts of sports. Looking at her brother she wished she could still play but from her accident on the field and a now a pretty useless knee all her sports dreams had been cut short. This thought tended to put her down but she had other interests now, and she realized that if anything maybe the move would be good for her. At least in helping her not dwell on her past as a star athlete.

Maybe this could be a new start to her life as someone other than a jock. She liked the sound of that, not that she would completely give up her love for sports, she had her brother for that. He was a star football player and apparently this small town they were moving to , Dillon, was home to a pretty damn good football team.

Mandy smiled at her brother as he looked rather fiercely concentrated on his work, "Hey big brother, (he was 7 minutes older than her), what you up to?" she asked as she leaned against the door frame.

Charlie looked up and smiled to see that his sister didn't look as angry as he had originally thought she would, "My last paper before we move." He got up and walked closer to his sister a look of concern appearing on his handsome features, "You okay with this move? I know its tough but it will be okay." His deep, low voice was a comfort to Mandy and she thought that maybe it would be okay.

"Yeah, maybe it will be. I guess I overreacted huh?" I said with a wry quirk of my lips, referring to my earlier screaming match with our grandfather.

"Maybe just a little." Charlie chuckled. He threw his arm around his sister and lead her out of the room. "Come on little sis, lets go play a little one on one. Don't worry I'll go easy on you." He smirked.

"Please Charlie, you know even with a fucked up knee I can still kick your ass." I smiled as we headed outside of our rather large home.

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Joseph smiled as he watched his grandchildren teasing each other and heading out to play a game of basketball. He shook his head, they sure were quite the pair he thought fondly, and with that he went off to find his wife to see what was for dinner, whilst hoping that this move would be good for his family.

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AN: Okay so longer than the prologue. Tell me what you think and hope to see in the future chapters. Like I said before I am open to suggestions to make this story as good as possible. I have a vague representation as to where I want to take this story but I may need help getting it there. Anyways review please. 


	3. Chapter 2

AN: I am really sorry that I have taken so long to update, but I have been really busy with school and work. I hope that this extra long chapter makes up for the late update just a little. And I would love some ideas that you may have on what I should add or tweak about the story, I am totally open to suggestions. Oh and I will be changing points of views every so often so that you know what is going on inside the characters heads just a little but I'll separate them with break lines as well as scene changes and so on. So anyways... here it is...

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Chapter 2 

I stared out side of our BMW X5 to the passing houses and storefronts as my Gramps navigated his way through the small town of Dillon, Texas. It was your typical small town, except for the fact that everywhere you looked there was some sort of Dillon Panther paraphernalia covering store windows or the signs of showing the name of one the players names and his jersey number.

I was still in a sort of daze still from the fact we were going from upper crust society to small town nobodies. The thought somewhat thrilled me as I realized that I would have a freedom here to be myself that I had never gotten at the previous prep schools that I had been forced to endure pretty much my whole life.

My brother Charlie and myself didn't really grow up like the other prep school bitches as I liked to call them, myself and my brother not included. We grew up with a love for sports and being normal, like playing in the dirt and climbing trees and other normal kid stuff. We also didn't have nannies like the 99.9 of the population of our prep school classmates did. Which is why I was always looked at like I was a freak doing things that were, gasp, unladylike.

My brother never got the third degree but I never resented him for it, if anything I teased him for being the object of affection of more than half the female population of our old school just because he was a jock and that was what was expected of him. Of course he always did the unexpected because surprise surprise he actually respected women. Well he should considering me and grams are pretty independent, awesomely cool women, Charlie learned early on how to treat women properly or I would kick his ass or worse tell grams.

I looked towards my brother with affection, and thought that at least we had each other through this move. He was the one who got me out of my funk after I blew my knee and could no longer play competitive sports. He was the one who got me to see that my life was more than just sports.

I feel like a hand squeezing my heart and I can't breathe every time I think of the day my parents died and how close I was to almost losing my twin brother too. I can't imagine my life without him in it, we are so alike in mannerisms and personality and yet also completely different. We complement each other, we always have.

Where I'm more volatile and quicker to temper, Charlie is calmer and slower to temper. But the thing that we have in common the most is probably the fact that we are so quick to defend the people we care about and that we hold on tight to the people we love, and love them with everything we have.

Of course that comes with the territory of having lost our parents, because instead of putting up walls to keep people out we let them in completely and cherish what we have with them every second we're with them because we know better than anybody that life is so damn short. It's the only way we know how to be, I can't imagine being any other way.

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Through all my musings I hadn't realized we'd arrived at our destination. A rather large piece of property on the outskirts of Dillon. The property was about 7 acres and had fencing all along it, outlining what belonged to us and after about a ten minute drive through the fenced dirt road we reached what would be our new home.

It was a magnificent four story white house with a wrap around porch, it had big bay windows on the third floor and I knew that would be my room since I had decided to focus more on my other talents like painting, music and writing I loved looking outside for inspiration and the front of the house was facing the west so I knew I could paint a rather spectacular sunset.

Also if I knew my grandfather he would have had the house designed for a floor designated for each of us, one for me, one for Charlie, and one for grams and gramps and of course the main floor for all of us. It was a beautiful home and knowing my grandmother probably already had all the necessities unpacked and waiting for us to give a special touch to really make it home.

I heard my grandfather telling my brother that another ten minute walk from the back of the house lead to the stable where there were four horses waiting for us. I was lucky in that me and Charlie had acquired a love for horses early on along with our riding lessons (one aspect of society upbringing we actually adhered to).

I walked into the house with a box of my personal things taking in all my surroundings, noticing that my brother and grandparents doing the same thing, I realized then that this would be a permanent base of operations for the Crawford family and I didn't feel sick to the stomach about it. I felt relieved, like I was finally coming home, I wondered if I would always feel like this. I hoped so.

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"Alright dears, lets get all this unpacked before dinner. We have a lot to do, so lets get to it." Annabelle aka Grams ordered her husband and grandchildren to work. 

"And kids we are having dinner with the schools coach and his family as well as the football team head sponsor, so once your finished please dress appropriately." Joseph gently reminded Mandy and Charlie.

"Are we having dinner at the coaches house?" asked Charlie.

"Yes we are son." Joseph stated while his grandkids looked at each other, the teens equally a little apprehensive with the possible awkward first dinner in there new home town. They almost simultaneously shrugged it off, used to withstanding awkward dinner affairs. Come on they came from uptight society crowds, high awkward status for sure.

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The two teens decided to head upstairs and start unpacking and making their rooms and living spaces more, well livable. 

"So Charlie, you scared about meeting your new coach?" Mandy teasingly asked her brother.

"Well considering I'm not officially on the team yet, he's not exactly my coach yet is he now." Charlie replied. "Besides I don't exactly scare easily unlike you."

"Hey that was a really big spider, you'd of freaked out too you jerk." Mandy grouched out. "And I do not scare easily." She pouted.

But the banter between the siblings stopped when they stepped onto Mandy's floor, after having passed the second floor that belonged to their grandparents, their was a small sitting area that lead into a large bedroom with big bay windows almost completely surrounding the room. Perfect for painting and drawing inspiration from the outside world for her writing and music.

"Wow, grams and gramps really went all out for this huh?" Mandy asked her brother.

"Did you really expect any less? I bet you can't wait to set up your easel right?" Charlie laughingly asked his sister. "See sis, I told you things would be okay. I can already tell you love this place and we've only been here for a half hour." He said while slinging an arm around her shoulders and grinning down at Mandy. She just grinned big back at Charlie silently agreeing with his comments, while staring in awe of all that landscape outside. _She couldn't wait to go riding either she thought._

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After about six hours of cleaning and putting things away and making the house look lived in and homey and theirs, the Crawford's cleaned themselves up and started to head towards the head coaches home for a most likely awkward affair according to Mandy and Charlie.

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AN: Okay so what do you think? Its definitely getting there. You will definitely see Tim next chapter and of course the Taylors. Just so you guy's know, this story takes place right after the tornado in the episode "There goes the neighborhood" but I will be changing certain events after that and everything after that will be different. But most of what has happened in the rest the season is there although I won't really be mentioning it. Anyways please review, they really do make a girl happy. 


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